The present invention generally relates to operation of electrical devices, for example, conventional household appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners and, more particularly, is concerned with a system and method for scheduling and monitoring usage of such electrical devices.
Consumers are increasingly facing electricity pricing variations based on energy usage demand and/or time of the day energy usage. As a result, it has become desirable to know the quantity of energy usage by various electrical devices, such as conventional household appliances and the levels of energy usage occurring during different periods of the day.
Residential energy monitoring systems have been proposed for use by utility companies for remotely and automatically monitoring the aggregate household energy usage of a plurality of homes within a given area. These systems are intended to obviate the need for xe2x80x9cmeter readersxe2x80x9d who personally inspect the utility meters of residences and record monthly energy usage. Remote automatic meter reading systems typically transmit power usage information over telephone lines, power lines or by radio communication links. The principal drawback of these proposed systems is that the energy consumption data is extracted solely from utility meters and as such does not provide any information regarding energy consumption of the individual electrical devices within the household.
A home energy usage monitoring and control system located in a residence for monitoring energy usage of individual household appliances is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,664,320 to Carr et al. This system envisions transmitting energy usage information over conventional AC wiring of the residence to a master control station in the residence which may then display the energy usage information in various formats according to the desires of the consumer. The system proposes an energy monitor unit connected to each appliance which includes a transceiver or modem capable of communication over 60-Hz AC house wiring. Each of these modems communicates with a second modem at the master control station.
With the advent of the Internet, a need has arisen for an innovation that will exploit the enhanced communications and information accessing and gathering capabilities of the Internet for enhancing the operation of electrical devices.
The present invention provides a system and method for scheduling and monitoring usage of an electrical device, such as a household appliance, based at least partially on information accessed and received via connection to the Internet. The system and method of the present invention facilitates the scheduling and monitoring of usage of the electrical device so as to primarily lower the energy usage expenses thereof and secondarily improve preventive maintenance thereof.
In one embodiment of the present invention, a system for scheduling and monitoring usage of an electrical device is provided which comprises means for controlling operation of the electrical device and means connectible with the operation controlling means and with the Internet for providing communications therebetween and for receiving instructions inputted by a service provider via the Internet and by a user and producing an output to the operation controlling means for scheduling and monitoring the operation of the electrical device via the operation controlling means. More particularly, the communications providing means is a computer and the operation controlling means includes an electronic controller connected to the computer and the electrical device and at least one sensor connected to the electronic controller and the electrical device such that the sensor is capable of detecting the amount of electrical power supplied to the electrical device.
In another embodiment of the present invention, a method for scheduling and monitoring usage of an electrical device is provided which comprises the steps of connecting an electronic controller to the electrical device for controlling operation of the device, providing communications between the electronic controller and the Internet, receiving instructions inputted by a service provider via the Internet and by a user, and producing an output to the electronic controller for scheduling and monitoring the operation of the electrical device via the electronic controller and the Internet. The method further comprises the steps of connecting at least one sensor to the electronic controller and the electrical device such that the sensor is capable of detecting the amount of electrical power supplied to the electrical device, and connecting a computer to the electronic controller and to the Internet to provide the communications between the electronic controller and the Internet and to receive the instructions inputted by the user and service provider via the Internet and to produce the output to the electronic controller.